World Science Festival 2013 in NYC web-streamed live to Mind Museum in Taguig

Science lovers, kids and kids-at-heart gathered in a science museum in the Philippines on May 31 and June 1 to witness the fourth World Science Festival (WSF)—straight from New York.

 

Maribel Garcia, curator of The Mind Museum in Taguig City, said it was the first time that the World Science Festival allowed live web streaming to a foreign country.

 

The Mind Museum, with the support of the US Embassy, hosted two consecutive events featuring lively discussions of scientists from different parts of the globe on May 31 and June 1.

“Science is where we find common ground. Common ground is the key to diplomacy,” said Heath Bailey, economic officer at the US Embassy.

 

Science Festival Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the United States has been staging the World Science Festival since 2009.

 

One of the founders of this organization is Columbia University physicist and author Brian Greene.

 

Consciousness conundrum

 

The first talk titled was simulcast in the auditorium of The Mind Museum on May 31.

 

A stellar roster of panelists gathered for the first talk dubbed “The Whispering Mind: The Conundrum of Consciousness” which was live streamed on May 31. Terry Morgan, ABC News anchor, moderated.  On the panel were:

 

 

Philosophers like McGinn believe that humans cannot understand consciousness like how Neanderthals will have a hard time comprehending Shakespeare.

 

But Koch rebutted McGinn’s argument which in turn stirred the crowd—both from the halls of the auditorium in New York as well as in the Philippines—by saying, “I think it's a defeatist argument. Historically, philosophers have a disastrous record of explaining things.” 

 

Schiff presented how even sophisticated science has shortcomings when it comes to understanding consciousness by talking about his work as a doctor and researcher on people recovering from a coma.

 

His example is a case of a fire fighter named Donald Herbert who was in a coma for almost ten years. Herbert’s case raised debates on whether to withdraw life support on him at that time. He had a traumatic brain injury after an accident while he was working in 1990. He woke up in 2005, retaining his memory.

 

Schiff also said that they haven’t really figured out when to know that the patient on a coma will wake up or not.

 

Boly, a sleep specialist, talked about her study on the brain activity while a person is asleep. 

 

She said she used magnetic pulses to stimulate parts of the brain and to know the difference between the brain activity when a person is awake or asleep. 

 

Boly also said brain activity appears to be more localized in a few parts and less complex during sleep.

 

Toward the end of the discussion, Koch said, “No brain, never mind,” which elicited laughter and applause from the audience as the panelists agree that the brain gives rise to consciousness.

 

Mapping the human brain

 

The following day, a different set of panelists provided a view on how complex the brain—the most complex organ in the human body—works in a discussion titled “Architects of the Mind: A Blueprint for the Human Brain.”

 

Bill Weir, also an ABC News anchor, moderated this discussion simulcast at the auditorium of the Mind Museum on June 1.

 

The panelists were developmental National Institutes of Health neurobiologist R. Douglas Fields, neuroscientist Kristen Harris who works in the University of Texas in Austin Center for Learning and Memory , cognitive roboticist Murray Shanahan from Imperial College London, and computer scientist Gregory Wheeler, a visiting professor at the Carnegie Mellon University.

 

The four panelists gave their view on the two independent human brain mapping projects—one  being conducted in Europe and the other in the United States.

 

Harris showed how neurons are dissected and colorized. 

 

“All of that volume of brain that took us years to reconstruct manually and through a computer is so tiny that if we are going to do it mathematically, of the human brain at that level, we have to repeat what I just showed you a trillion times,” Harris said.

 

The panelists believe that it is high time that nations took interest in this kind of endeavor but maintained that much more sophisticated technology is needed for a brain mapping project to succeed.
 

US and Europe-based projects

 

U.S. President Barack Obama, for one, called for a $100-million budget to fund a brain mapping project titled Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative.

 

Fields said neurons are not the only parts of the brain. He is the author of a book, The Other Brain, which talks about glia or glial cells or the other type of brain cells that are non-neurons.

 

In an email Fields told the writer, “The practical uses of the project are in understanding how circuits in the brain process information and may malfunction in disease.  The neurons themselves may function normally, but the connections between neurons (and glia) in large-scale brain circuits may be the reason for many psychiatric and neurological dysfunctions.”

 

The European Union is also investing in a $1.6-billion dollar endeavor called “The Human Brain Project” also dubbed as the “CERN for the brain,” referencing the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

 

Citing a study created in the University of California Berkeley, Fields said glial cells are associated with geniuses as they found out that Albert Einstein’s brain have more, bigger glial cells.

 

He also said in a separate email interview that glia are not being incorporated in the BRAIN Initiative in its current publicized materials. 

 

He added that exploring the “other half of the brain” should be prioritized in this project as “this area of research is so neglected.”

 

Computer simulation of the brain

 

Weir, the moderator, asked if it is possible to simulate the human brain into a computer, Shanahan said, “We can’t say the brain is like a computer, but we can create computers that can work similar to the brain.”

 

Shanahan also pointed out that in able for us to understand how the brain works, we should also take into consideration its coordination with the body, “The body is important to cognitive function.”

 

From Manila came one of the questions: “Human brains are famously error-prone. If we were to build artificial brains, will we have to program these tendencies to make mistakes?”

 

The panelists said that is an interesting point to ponder but it would be difficult to provide a definitive answer. — ELR, GMA News